The Good Place
Spiritual Formation and the Questions We’re Afraid to Ask About God’s Goodness
The Deep
I’ve been marinating in some scriptural passages that speak to the depths of the human person that we explore here.
The psalmist declares, “Behold, you desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden parts you will make me know wisdom.”
Similar sentiments are expressed in other wisdom books, such as “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life” and “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” Still another says, “The spirit of a person is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of their being.”
We’ve been exploring the depths of the spiritual journey in these terms and have concluded that human beings run on a sort of “operating system”. We are powered and governed by forces and influences that sit in our hearts, the “innermost part of our beings.” For the most part, these forces influence us without us being consciously aware of their existence.
A deep person, then, is someone who, at some point in their lives, takes the inward journey into these hidden places with God to uncover these forces and to determine if they are helpful or harmful.
Unfortunately, we’ve also discovered that few people actually plumb these depths, choosing rather to live on the surface. To do so is to resist God’s invitation to enter into His good life - to experience His delight, affirmation, and gentle pursuit in the bedrock of our hearts. And yes, I’m generally referring to people who already claim some affiliation with Jesus.
Our operating systems consist of at least two forces: ideas and desires. Presently, we are wrestling with our ideas (unconscious assumptions and conclusions) about God, others, ourselves, and creation.
Ideas and Beliefs
I’m sometimes asked if ideas are the same thing as beliefs. In our current post-enlightenment era, the answer is generally no.
Though “belief” in the biblical sense often refers to a fully embodied trust in something, today it generally refers to a conscious, intellectual agreement.
Therefore, beliefs are typically changed or altered through the presentation of persuasive information. Our comprehensive set of beliefs about God and reality is called our worldview.
Ideas, however, are not so much intellectual conclusions as they are experienced realities. I refer to our collection of ideas and desires as our heartview.
Ideas are not influenced much through instruction - they are molded and shaped through relationships and experience. And character formation (the primary purpose of the discipleship journey) involves the healing and reformation of harmful ideas and the flourishing of life-giving ones.
Yet Modern Christianity, in today’s ethos, tends to highly value beliefs while ignoring or minimizing ideas. In other words, the underlying assumption of many Christian efforts today is to produce people who intellectually agree with various biblical truth claims, not to produce people whose inner lives are being formed more like Jesus over time through deeper and deeper experiences of Him.
If you find that doubtful, just take a look at how Jesus followers tend to identify themselves: Baptist, Catholic, Armenian, Reformed, Conservative, Progressive, etc. These category terms refer to variations of belief sets, not stages of inner spiritual health.
In fact, most of us wouldn’t know what to do if, upon asking a friend which denomination or sect they belong to, they replied, “Oh, I’m Gretchen, and I’m a far less angry person than I was three years ago.”
While doctrinal rigor is important, we might consider focusing on how that theology is or is not molding our hearts, rather than just our heads.
Is God Good?
We have started a little mini-series of articles regarding our ideas of God, which often differ from our beliefs about Him.
Many of us who follow Jesus will certainly insist that we believe God is good.
Yet, if we compassionately and gently examine our heartview indicators (thoughts, emotions, words, relationships, health, behaviors, and how we use time and money), we might uncover some different ideas.
-A Subtle Distrust
We may find ourselves hesitating with God. We hold back or keep our distance, generally in response to life not working out the way we thought it would.
We may never say it out loud, but somewhere inside, there is a quiet question: Is He really for me?
This doesn’t look like outright rebellion, but as caution, emotionally and spiritually. We know we should surrender, but surrender only makes sense if the one we are surrendering to is deeply, unquestionably good.
-The Need to Control
Ah, control. When we function from the idea that God isn’t truly good, we begin to manage outcomes, orchestrate our lives, and hold tightly to whatever we can.
Attempting to control God, other people, or events outside of our domain is a natural, human response when our hearts are broken. The reason is obvious - we don’t want to experience pain again.
In other words, our hearts don’t feel safe, and safety is a primary ingredient of goodness.
-Anxiety That Won’t Let Go
If God is truly good (seeks our flourishing), then we would expect, at least over time, a growing sense of innate peace, right? Our hearts should experience a steady decrease in worry, anxiety, and stress.
That doesn’t mean we experience an absence of difficulty or suffering. Rather, we live in a quiet confidence that, somehow, we are going to be okay.
When that is largely absent—when anxiety is a routine companion—it may suggest our heart isn’t on the same page as our head.
-Resentment Beneath the Surface
We may also notice a quiet frustration with how our lives have unfolded. This is common among those of us living in our middle years. Our bank account isn’t growing while our waistline is. Perhaps our marriage didn’t work out, or our kids didn’t all become rocket scientists or doctors. The dreams we had a few years ago didn’t work out, and we now accept they won’t.
We put on a good face, but sometimes dashed dreams result in a quiet conclusion: If God were truly good, things would not look like this.
And that conclusion, even if we never articulate it, begins to reshape how we relate to Him.
-Difficulty Receiving Love
This may be one of the clearest signs of a heart that functions from the idea that God isn’t very good. If we struggle to receive love—from God or others—it may not simply be a personality trait or a past wound. It may reflect what we assume about the nature of love itself.
To receive love is to be vulnerable. To love is to risk. We open ourselves to another and trust that what is coming toward us is good, even as we seek to extend goodness to those we love.
If we struggle to do that, it raises an important question: Do I actually experience love as safe and good?
A Little More Conversation?
I can easily share these five examples of our genuine ideas of God’s goodness because I’ve lived them all.
At present, I can identify most acutely with a persistent sense of resentment: that my life has not turned out the way I thought it should. I am firmly shaped and molded by the American dream and its myriad manifestations in sitcoms, social media, commercials, movies, and simply wandering around the mall. For some reason, I didn’t get the stable career, the new Lexus, the best friend from high school, the doting dog, and the beach vacations every year.
Because my inner definition of goodness continues to differ from His, my heart doesn’t trust Him as deeply as it once did (or perhaps it never has).
Some might conclude that my quiet resentment is simply sin. To mistrust God’s goodness is to call His character into question. I don’t trust Him enough.
You would be correct on all accounts.
And yet, His call to me is not one of condemnation. In fact, He often reminds me of the staggering number of writers and passages in His book who struggled with the same questions, the same mistrust, and the same resentment.
Somewhat surprisingly, I don’t get the sense He wants me to “get my act together,” at least not in the way I might expect. Instead, He quietly and gently urges me to tell him exactly what and how I feel, to Him, as often as I’d like. I’m not sure anyone else in my life would extend that type of invitation, but He isn’t really like anyone else in my life.
Huh. That sort of conversation sounds pretty good.
Duc In Altum,
Brian
Suggested Podcast Episode
I realize this whole concept of ideas is a bit weird. Probing our hearts to uncover these hidden ideas may seem selfish, too intrusive, or irrelevant to our day-to-day lives. Yet the more I study and contemplate the human heart, spiritual formation, and character development, the more I’m convinced that inviting God to guide us into our “hidden parts” is essential to us becoming people of depth.
If you’d like to keep poking around this type of self-examination, check out Episode 140 of the Soil & Roots podcast. I’ve found that the more I wrestle with this whole inward journey, the more I’m becoming accustomed to it and its ability to deepen our souls.